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Moving the database (SUSDB)

The following instructions are for moving the SUSDB and should be valid irrespective of if you are using SBS or WSUS as a standalone product.

As with a regular SQL Server datastore, you can detach and move the database.

Since the database is a normal SQL database, you can simply detach, move and reattach the database. In order to do this, you will however need some tools. Note that these tools are not part of the operating system, so if you haven’t already installed them previosly, then you will need to do so now.

NOTE: You can also download and use the command line tools instead of the full management studio. (If you are familliar with these tools and their usage, then these instructions will probably be a piece of cake for you.)

You can do this via the commandline or by using the Services MMC snap-in (start run, services.msc).

Command line:

net stop "update services"
net stop w3svc

(Once the database has been moved you will need to restart these services. Also note that if you have any other services which are dependant on the above services – such as Terminal Services Gateway – they will also be stopped and will need to be restarted.)

Once the services have been stopped, you can proceed to detach the database.

Via SQL Server Management Studio (or Express):

Login to server as an administrator.

Click Start/Programs/Microsoft SQL Server 2005/SQL Server Management Studio Express. (NOTE: If you are not logged in as Administrator, Right click on SQL Server Management Studio and select Run As Administrator.)

Fill in the following information and then click Connect

Server type: Database Engine

Servername: \\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query

Authentication: Windows Authentication

Expand Databases, right-click on SUSDB and select Tasks > Detach… (Please continue reading before proceeding with this step, unless you are 100% sure where your current SUSDB files are located.)

Select the “Drop Connection” checkbox and click OK. (There shouldn’t be any open connections as we have stopped all the relevant services.)

Move C:\WSUS\SUSDB folder to the <new drive>:\WSUS directory. (Assuming that your SUSDB is currently located here – otherwise you can check where it is located prior to detaching the database by viewing it’s properties.)

To reattach the database, right-click on Database and select Attach…

On the Attach Databases page select the Add button.

Browse to the new location of the SUSDB and click OK twice to complete task

I can never seem to remember how to do this on 2008, so herewith instructions (copied from above link):

Time synchronization is an important aspect for all computers on the network. By default, the clients computers get their time from a Domain Controller and the Domain Controller gets his time from the domain’s PDC Operation Master. Therefore the PDC must synchronize his time from an external source. I usually use the servers listed at the NTP Pool Project website. Before you begin, don’t forget to open the default UDP 123 port (in- and outbound) on your firewall.

— If the outbound mail queue on a mail server is very long then it slows the system and the network down and it can cause delays for all inbound / outbound traffic (such as legitimate business mails).

— Users on an Exchange server have the ability to schedule (or delay) an outbound e-mail. Delayed mails (on Exchange connected mailboxes) will still be delivered even if your e-mail client (Outlook) is closed and / or your computer is switched off.

Please review the following screenshots (based on Microsoft Outlook 2007) for instructions on how to implement points 4, 5 and 8 above:

Up to recently internet access in South Africa has been billed by the GB – i.e. capped internet, with a few providers such as Internet Solutions offering uncapped solutions to businesses, but at a very high price.

Some months ago M-Web released their uncapped offerings starting from R219 / month.

It is a very attractive offer, but not necessarily cheaper than capped internet.

The following table summarises the costs of capped vs uncapped, based on a per gigabyte price of R59 / gig (inclusive of 14% VAT):

Line speed

Telkom rental

M-Web data

M-Web all incl

Telkom + M-Web Data

All inclusive saving

Gigs at avg. cost

384

R152,00

R219,00

R349,00

R371,00

R(22,00)

3,711864407

512

R326,00

R299,00

R599,00

R625,00

R(26,00)

5,06779661

4096

R413,00

R539,00

R899,00

R952,00

R(53,00)

9,13559322

Avg. / GB price

R59,00

All pricing includes 14% VAT

This information is provided as is and without any warranty whether express or implied.

Information based on pricing as advertised on Telkom and M-Web’s websites on 18/08/2010

Based on the information in the table above it is clear that uncapped is only cheaper if you use more than 3GB of data / month on a 384 Kbps line, 5GB on a 512 Kbps line and 9 GB on a 4096 Kbps line.

For some time now I have been interested in hooking my asterisk server up to Skype – I mean isn’t this the next logical step?

So after googling around, I came upon many sites that offer software packages that integrate with Asterisk via SIP. I even ended up purchasing a license for SiskyEE from Yeastar. Now finally Digium has opened up the beta program for “Skype for Asterisk”…

Here’s the e-mail I received:

Hello from Digium® We are pleased to announce the open beta of Skype For Asterisk is ready to begin and we look forward to you participation. To obtain your copy of the software, please visit Digium’s web store and purchase (for zero dollars) the Skype For Asterisk product. The web store does require a Digium.com account, which can be set up during the purchase process if you don’t already have one.

Once the web store process is complete, you will be e-mailed your license key and directions on where to download Skype For Asterisk beta software.

The beta version of software and license keys will only be available for download through August 7th. License keys will expire on August 31st.

Happy testing!

Sincerely, Pete Engler, Product Manager

I can’t wait to try this out… Will post more once I have had a chance to test this!

If you already have portaudit installed, ensure your portaudit database is up to date:
> portaudit -Fd

and upgrade affected packages using
> portupgrade <<package name>>

You might want to ensure your port’s database is up to date before hand using cvsup or portsnap

I would however recommend portsnap over cvsup – see excerpt from portsnap pkg-description file:

"Portsnap is a system for securely updating the ports tree by
distributing signed compressed snapshots. This is the client
half of that system; it downloads compressed snapshots into
/usr/local/portsnap ("portsnap fetch") and uses those to extract
a ports tree into /usr/ports ("portsnap extract") or update an
existing tree ("portsnap update").
In addition to operating entirely over HTTP, portsnap can use under
a tenth of the bandwidth required by CVSup if a copy of the ports
tree is being updated every few days.
WWW: http://www.daemonology.net/portsnap/
- Colin Percival"

To install portsnap (if not already installed):

> cd /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portsnap
> make install clean

Then simply run

> portsnap fetch update

For further information regarding FreeBSD vulnerability auditing, please see this great post:

I recently encountered a problem with one of our SBS servers running Symantec Backup Exec 12. Jobs would not run and the job status kept saying “Server Paused”. Apart from that there was also a problem with the SCSI card timing out…

I rebooted the server and the SCSI time-outs disappeared, but the job status still said “Server paused”. Although the tabular view under the job monitor said “running”, jobs were not running, and job activity (double click on running job) gave status “server paused”.

Under the devices tab the server was not set to pause. However, setting it to pause and then un-pausing the server resolved my problem. (This is accomplished by right-click on the server name, underneath the “Devices” tab and then clicking on pause.) Jobs were now running and no longer showed status “server paused” under the job activity window.

A truly strange problem, with an easy solution.

Please note that the SCSI time-outs and “server paused” seems to have been unrelated.

I’m writing this article, because many people don’t have the luxury of a server and therefore work on a p2p network. So now you have setup user accounts for all the users on all the computers in your p2p network and everything works great. Users can access files shares and network printers, but every 42 days it stops working due to passwords expiring.

Here is how you disable passwords from expiring:

Open Control Panel, Administrative Tools

Open the Local Security Policy snap-in

In the tree view in the left side, navigate to Security Settings -> Account Policies -> Password Policy

In the right side, select Maximum Password Age and change the default value of 42 to 0. A value of 0 means that the passwords will not expire.